Crypto 24 / 7 News

03:47am EDT | Update: Tesla Billionaire Elon Musk Outlines ‘Visa Speed’ Dogecoin Upgrade Plan After Serious Bitcoin And Ethereum Warning
Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, who’s repeatedly backed dogecoin over bitcoin, ethereum and other cryptocurrencies in recent months , has again gone to bat for the meme-based cryptocurrency.
[Update: 07/10/21 05:20am EDT] Musk followed up his earlier tweets with further details of how he sees dogecoin eventually competing with the likes of payments giant Visa.
“Block size and frequency should steadily increase to match broadly available bandwidth,” Musk replied to a Tesla fan account asking whether dogecoin’s transactions per second would have to reach the speed of Visa “to be really useful.”
“It won’t need to reach Visa speed, as regulated exchanges will act as de facto second layer,” Musk wrote.”But the perfect should not be the enemy of the good—it is still good to increase base layer transaction speed and lower base layer transaction cost.”
Musk, the self-proclaimed technoking of Tesla who was once voted dogecoin’s CEO in a tongue-in-cheek Twitter poll, warned over limitations he sees with bitcoin and ethereum, branding them “slow” with “high” costs.
Sign up now for CryptoCodex — a free, daily newsletter for the crypto-curious that explains the world of bitcoin with brevity.Arriving in your inbox at 7am EDT every weekday MORE FOR YOU Tesla billionaire Elon Musk has adopted “joke” bitcoin and ethereum rival dogecoin as a pet project …[+] in recent months, helping its price to soar.Getty Images
“There is merit [in my opinion] to doge maximizing base layer transaction rate and minimizing transaction cost with exchanges acting as the de facto secondary layer,” Musk said via Twitter , replying to dogecoin investor and YouTuber Matt Wallace.
“[Bitcoin and ethereum] are pursuing a multilayer transaction system, but base layer transaction rate is slow and transaction cost is high,” Musk added.
It’s hoped that bitcoin, via its payments-focused lightning network and a recent upgrade called taproot , will be able to resolve some of its scaling issues, while ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, is in the midst of a long-awaited upgrade that’s not expected to be completed for years.
Musk was replying to a tweet by Wallace that claimed “the dogecoin update is coming soon,” and that it “will position doge perfectly to become one of the most used currencies in the world.”
In May, Musk proposed a dogecoin upgrade that he claimed is “needed [for dogecoin] to become the currency of Earth” and beat bitcoin “hands down.”
The dogecoin price has surged this year, initially riding January’s meme stock wave, but subsequently developing a haphazard community somewhat led by Musk who envision it eventually competing with the likes of bitcoin and ethereum.
Musk, whose irreverent attitude to bitcoin and cryptocurrencies on Twitter has alienated much of the bitcoin community, has previously said all of his dogecoin related comments shouldn’t be taken seriously but has since ramped up his support of it—issuing calls for developer support and promising to put a “literal dogecoin on the literal moon” via his rocket company SpaceX.
Tesla continues to hold more than $1 billion worth of bitcoin it bought near the beginning of the year—though that investment is now thought to be underwater— but Musk has also indicated he personally holds dogecoin .
CryptoCodex —A free, daily newsletter for the crypto-curious.Helping you understand the world of bitcoin and crypto, every day.